The final guidelines for Australia's planned R18+ rating are revealed on GameSpot, where they talk with Australia's Federal Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O'Connor about what these entail. The R18+ rating, which is already approved in principle (thanks GamePron), will be voted on by parliament as soon as February, and if enacted, will give the classification board immediate power to approve games with the new rating, as well as to re-rate MA15+ rated games into the new category. There will also still be games which are refused classification, as word is: "Any game with sexual violence will be refused classification. [Smith] need not worry, sexual violence is refused classification now, and it will be refused classification once R18+ passes." Here are the planned guidelines for R18+ games:

Under the final guidelines, the criteria for an R18+ game will now be:

THEMES:
There are virtually no restrictions on the treatment of themes.

VIOLENCE:
Violence is permitted. High impact violence that is, in context, frequently gratuitous, exploitative and offensive to a reasonable adult will not be permitted.
Sexual violence may be implied, if non-interactive and justified by context.

SEX:
Sexual activity may be realistically simulated. The general rule is "simulation, yes—the real thing, no".

LANGUAGE:
There are virtually no restrictions on language.

DRUG USE:
Drug use is permitted
Drug use related to incentives and rewards is not permitted.

Both wrong, there's at least one AO game for consoles that I know of, and retail stores do carry it.

Remember the fiasco with that one GTA having to be re-rated to AO? You can't tell me stores stopped carrying GTA (except maybe in AU).

When the ESRB changed the rating to AO, Take-Two stopped production of the game and gave retailers the option of returning their copies to be replaced with revised M-rated ones. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of retailers did so. The biggest chains (Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, Staples, Toys 'r Us, GameStop, etc) definitely did, as they didn't want to risk any lawsuits resulting from false labeling. Take-Two even settled a lawsuit, allowing consumers to trade in their old copies for the revised M-rated ones.

Nintendo, Sony and MS will not license AO-rated games on their respective platforms. This isn't a theory, it's an established fact. GTA:SA was re-rated AO after it was released, which is why it was the only AO-rated game on consoles and even then, only briefly. The AO rating was never sanctioned by Sony or MS.

Sleette wrote on Nov 4, 2011, 17:08:So, here's my question: This is an 18+ rating. That means available to adults only. So does this mean that no sex at all is allowed in any media in Australia? There are no porn movies for sale? All access to explicit websites is blocked? If so, Wow, I had no clue. If not, why unfairly single out the games media for this restriction?

I was wondering when someone would bring this up.. it's the first thing that struck me. I assume 18+ is the least restrictive rating. So these amount to rules about what ADULTS can purchase/be sold.

Drug use for incentives?Explicit sex?Explicit violence?

If I, as an adult, want to play a game (or read a book, watch a movie) with this type of content, who is the government to say that I can't. What about freedom of artistic expression?

I'm surprised the comments here seem, in large part, to willingly accept this as ok. Agreed, this just looks like a slightly upgraded Mature rating to me, especially considering that most games that would be rated M here (Canada) will actually be using this new R18+ rating in Australia.

Obviously there'll never be AO games for the consoles, but does this mean that adults still can't buy truly adult only PC games in Aus?

SEX:Sexual activity may be realistically simulated. The general rule is "simulation, yes—the real thing, no".

So, here's my question: This is an 18+ rating. That means available to adults only. So does this mean that no sex at all is allowed in any media in Australia? There are no porn movies for sale? All access to explicit websites is blocked? If so, Wow, I had no clue. If not, why unfairly single out the games media for this restriction?

I was wondering when someone would bring this up.. it's the first thing that struck me. I assume 18+ is the least restrictive rating. So these amount to rules about what ADULTS can purchase/be sold.

Drug use for incentives?Explicit sex?Explicit violence?

If I, as an adult, want to play a game (or read a book, watch a movie) with this type of content, who is the government to say that I can't. What about freedom of artistic expression?

I'm surprised the comments here seem, in large part, to willingly accept this as ok.

I actually did bring it up, but why the surprise that the comments here seem to accept this as ok? I think we have maybe a total of four or five commenters from Australia. This isn't talking about the US, where fortunately an adult can do watch whatever he wants to as long as it's rated AO. (and not illegal like child porn, obviously.)

SEX:Sexual activity may be realistically simulated. The general rule is "simulation, yes—the real thing, no".

So, here's my question: This is an 18+ rating. That means available to adults only. So does this mean that no sex at all is allowed in any media in Australia? There are no porn movies for sale? All access to explicit websites is blocked? If so, Wow, I had no clue. If not, why unfairly single out the games media for this restriction?

I was wondering when someone would bring this up.. it's the first thing that struck me. I assume 18+ is the least restrictive rating. So these amount to rules about what ADULTS can purchase/be sold.

Drug use for incentives?Explicit sex?Explicit violence?

If I, as an adult, want to play a game (or read a book, watch a movie) with this type of content, who is the government to say that I can't. What about freedom of artistic expression?

I'm surprised the comments here seem, in large part, to willingly accept this as ok.

Cutter wrote on Nov 4, 2011, 14:08:And what the hell is a "reasonable adult"?

I agree, it's extremely vague. This kind of language could be used to ban almost anything, since the vast majority of people are opposed to violence. Just look at the outcry against the judge who beat his daughter with a belt, an act which would be fairly minor in most video games.

Cutter wrote on Nov 4, 2011, 14:08:And what the hell is a "reasonable adult"?

I agree, it's extremely vague. This kind of language could be used to ban almost anything, since the vast majority of people are opposed to violence. Just look at the outcry against the judge who beat his daughter with a belt, an act which would be fairly minor in most video games.

If Star Citizen was a child conceived in a night of passion, it would have started elementary school by now. -panbient

Beamer wrote on Nov 4, 2011, 15:52:You have plenty of "reasonable" which I was getting at.

Even 'reasonable' has very strict definitions in Canadian law, covering no less than 5 pages in an annotated criminal code. A reasonable person knows that the sky is blue. That 1+1=2, that if you use a knife to stab someone, your intention was to cause grievous harm. That if you don't feed a baby you can kill it. But if you leave your 15yr old kid at home for the evening, they have enough sense to feed themselves.

--"For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution; and it is always wrong." --H.L. Mencken

SEX:Sexual activity may be realistically simulated. The general rule is "simulation, yes—the real thing, no".

So, here's my question: This is an 18+ rating. That means available to adults only. So does this mean that no sex at all is allowed in any media in Australia? There are no porn movies for sale? All access to explicit websites is blocked? If so, Wow, I had no clue. If not, why unfairly single out the games media for this restriction?

If Star Citizen was a child conceived in a night of passion, it would have started elementary school by now. -panbient

necrosis wrote on Nov 4, 2011, 14:36:Simulation = GTA3. Guy and hooker get in car. All you see is the car bouncing up and down and the windows fogging up. You know whats happening it is just not outright shown.

Real Thing = Outright showing two people fucking.

In the movie industry "simulated" means anything that doesn't include any parts explicitly in contact with any other parts. So the Hot Coffee mod would be simulated.

If Star Citizen was a child conceived in a night of passion, it would have started elementary school by now. -panbient

Beamer wrote on Nov 4, 2011, 14:58:Half of the western world's laws involve similar terminology.

We don't have that in our criminal code here in Canada. An 'adult' is a person who is neither a 'young person' nor a 'child'. Basically someone who isn't under 12(no mens rea - mental ability to commit a crime/reasoning), and the YCJA doesn't apply to 13-18(exception at 18 on act).

Rattlehead wrote on Nov 4, 2011, 11:00:Also how is sexual violence ever justified?

Exactly. That made me scratch my head, too.

The only thing I can think of is that it's part of the story where the villain is being portrayed as being particularly villainous ... like the protagonist has to takedown a bunch of rapists? In this case sexual violence is being portrayed, but not carried out.

EDIT: To be frank, this is streets ahead of what we currently have here in Australia. I am so glad that finally we will have pretty much no more bannings and that adult gamers are finally being treated as adults. Rather than picking holes, I would have thought you'd be cheering. :p

Beamer wrote on Nov 4, 2011, 14:58:Half of the western world's laws involve similar terminology.

We don't have that in our criminal code here in Canada. An 'adult' is a person who is neither a 'young person' nor a 'child'. Basically someone who isn't under 12(no mens rea - mental ability to commit a crime/reasoning), and the YCJA doesn't apply to 13-18(exception at 18 on act).

--"For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution; and it is always wrong." --H.L. Mencken